1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to centralized management and distribution of an organization's information, and, in particular, information regarding emergency response plans, procedures, and contact information, delivery information, and customer service information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Today, businesses and other organizations strive to improve their preparedness for the unexpected. Organizations recognize the importance of continuing their business operations, communicating with personnel, and maintaining the safety of personnel during times of crisis. To do so, businesses and other organizations typically design and maintain a set of rules and procedures to follow in case of an emergency, such as a fire, earthquake, terrorist attack, or other disaster. In the event a disaster strikes, companies, organizations, and institutions expect their personnel to follow the organization's emergency response procedures.
Effective emergency response procedures must be updated periodically. To facilitate personnel's awareness of the updated emergency response procedures and to ensure that all required measures are followed accurately, an organization typically collects and organizes pertinent information for the entire organization and distributes it to a selected group of individuals. Conventionally, emergency response procedures, tracking and reporting information, contact lists, and other information related to emergency response are organized, printed, and compiled in a loose-leaf, paper-based binder or other type of hard-copy manual, and the organization distributes the three-ring binders, and any periodically updated portions, to the personnel responsible for following and implementing the emergency response procedures.
To implement such a system, a number of employees in an organization have to spend time creating, updating, compiling, and distributing manuals and their updated portions to the relevant employees within the organization. Distribution may be especially difficult if the relevant employee is located offsite in a remote office, if the employee travels frequently or for extended periods, or if the employee's job requires being out of the office or away from their desk, such as delivery or sales job that requires visiting customer sites or help desk personnel that visit the offices of IT system users to fix their computer problems. By the time the emergency-response-related information is entered, organized, compiled and distributed, some of the information may be outdated or obsolete.
In addition, the employees responsible for following and implementing the emergency response procedures have to spend time on a regular basis checking to ensure that their binders or manuals contain the most up-to-date versions of documents, contact lists, etc. The relevant employees may neglect to timely update the information that pertains to them, especially if they are busy, travel frequently, or spend little time in an office. This conventional process of collecting and disseminating information is time consuming, costly, and incapable of providing the most up-to-date information on a timely basis. It is therefore desirable to provide an automated system capable of delivering in a timely manner the most current and accurate information, such as emergency response information, directly to the individuals responsible for using the information, such as the employees responsible for following and implementing an organization's emergency response procedures.
Similarly, timely delivery of up-to-date information maintained at a central location is desirable for other aspects of an organization's operations as well. For example, the schedules and tasks for personnel that travel to customer locations, such as service persons, repair persons, or delivery persons, may be created and maintained at a central location, such as a call center. Distributing and maintaining daily printed travel schedules to such personnel suffer the same drawbacks described above for emergency response procedures, perhaps even more so because these travel schedules and tasks can change frequently and with no notice, as customers call in with new requests, cancel previous requests, change the desired visit time of previous requests, request new tasks or services to be performed, or change the particulars of a task or location. Thus, it is desirable to provide a system capable of centrally maintaining yet timely delivering the most up-to-date and accurate scheduling, tasking, and other information to the personnel responsible for implementing the scheduled activities.